


A Bit Sheepish

by AspiratingAnxiety



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Arlathan, Biting, But Nothing Dubious, Dominance, F/M, Falling Back in Time, Knotting, Lord bless my filthy A/B/O loving soul, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, a bit rough, a/b/o dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 20:20:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10794066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AspiratingAnxiety/pseuds/AspiratingAnxiety
Summary: "Have you ever...?"He bursts from his quiet doze with clear outrage. "Yes!""I was only asking," she demurs.His cheeks flush deeply. "Well, the answer is yes.""Alright.""Alright."In which an Omega Lavellan falls back in time to find a much younger, much less experienced Solas who attempts to soothe her through a heat.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Why can't I just write smut? Why I gotta' write intro chapters? The fuck?

It slams into him with the same savage violence that rips her through the eluvian. He knows immediately, instinctually, what it is.

What she is.

He bolts from his slouched position against the garden wall, plowing through a huddle of Mythal’s favored servants. The crowd is too distracted competing among themselves. They titter in a cloud of excitement and wisps of residual magic, each attempting to out-congratulate the last as they offer praise to the Lady Mother on this most incredible of successes. No one is braced for the impact of a shoulder or a jab from an elbow. He carves a path to her in record time.

There is an ocean of unfamiliar sensation tossing in his gut as he stares at the woman unconscious on the stone dais.

She is fair, skin left waxy and sallow after the labor of her harsh journey. He lifts a shaking arm, but stops before he rests his touch against her. She looks so weak. So tired. So hurt.

Will she know him when she wakes?

He does not know her.

There is pain within him at this thought. It strikes so fiercely that its impact echoes in his bones.

_He does not know her._

“Solas?”

It is Mythal. Sharp and demanding, offended more so than those he physically bowled out of his way. This is her glory. Her victory. He is spoiling it.

His voice fails him. He manages one hoarse syllable before his fingertips dip and brush the clammy flesh of her cheek. A jolt that draws a cry from him reverberates through the crowd. There are gasps of awe and pity. Whispers hiss against his back as the unfounded roots of the mating bond between himself and this stranger burrow more deeply into him, seeking firmer purchase.

It is exposed suddenly, their internal development. He can do nothing to hide it. Mating bonds change the presence of those that bear them. The essence of one’s partner wraps around them, mingling into a slur of shared emotion. The crowd sees it, feels the shift in the air as the bond lashes and heaves into place.

It should not be this way.

Bonds are made during a partner’s season. Privately. They are struck after years of companionship and trust, not before a captive audience. True bonds, as the one he believes he feels within himself, can take centuries to cultivate. Some happily fulfilled couples never manage to achieve a bond of any sort.

Mythal kneels beside him, laying a hand on his shoulder. He lurches over his mate with another raw sound, subconsciously driven to shield her weakened state. He trembles above her, hand still awkwardly against her cold skin.  

“Oh, Solas.” The Lady Mother’s words are sympathetic where they had been reprimanding.

She knows. She understands. She is bonded to her love more deeply, perhaps, than any he has ever met.

“She will be made well.” It is a promise. “I am so sorry.”

\---

He does not trust the healers to support her. He carries her himself. She is light and limp, dangling in his grasp like a dead thing. She is hollow. He can feel nothing from her save for ragged breathing and an occasional spasm that causes a limb to twitch unnaturally. She does not respond to any prodding he attempts. Still, reassurances fall from his lips in a torrent of clumsy mumbling.

His grip tightens as they race down the final hall and barrel into his quarters. He barks at a healer. The man places a pillow on top of one of his spare desks before he lays his mate on the surface. Careful of her positioning, he stations himself at the head of the makeshift medical cot and brushes at the filth and swelling on her face as the others begin to take stock of her injuries.

Contusions run along her entire right side. Right wrist broken. Shoulder pulled from its socket. Two fractured ribs.

Surely, it is the fall through time that hurt her physically. They repeat this like a mantra as multiple oddities surface to dispute their claims. Much of her damage is far from fresh. Her skin is discolored with bruising. Her flesh has been open so long that it is attempting to knit itself together with an angry red crust. There are layers of abuse beneath the most obvious harm: evidence of malnourishment and years of heavy strain. They insist that she can be healed easily, but this is before they notice a wound of a more severe nature.

It is exactly as he feared. Bile rises in his throat, and he resists the urge to flounder away from her.

She is empty. The pulse of magic within her is his own. The Dreaming quivers against her skin, unsure how to seep into the vessel of her body as it is meant to.

The healers do not know what to make of this, and again blame the journey that the Lady Mother unknowingly forced upon his mate. They do not know how to fix her, only that if she does not reconnect with the Dreaming as quickly as possible, terrible consequences are sure to befall them.

He is unable to answer or advise, experiencing each revelation and subsequent theory like repetitive blows to his throat. Solas is sure that he will vomit soon. He struggles against the tide of his sickness, and the medical team sets to work without his input.

They are quick and efficient. It is only when they remove her left glove that he is pulled from his internal reeling. There is a split in her hand. It does not weep blood, but power. Unadulterated magic that crackles in the air as the set of people around her gawp.

It is his power; he knows it well.

Angry and volatile, it is misplaced in her flesh and acts as the source of her internal disruption. It should not be transferable in such a way. He’s spent a century crafting the basin fit to carry this magic. As of this day, its production is not yet complete. He is in the early stages of forcing as much of himself as he might into the budding foci that will be his own when he ascends from his apprenticeship. 

Why is his magic not carried in the orb? Why does his mate suffer with the burden of a power that has grown toxic? When does all of this go so wrong?

Can it be avoided?

“Leave us!” he snaps. The echoes of his voice snarl in the vaulted ceilings of his sitting room.

The servants scurry, unaccustomed to such outbursts from him. He is unaccustomed to them as well, and registers the feral quality of his tone with an abnormal distance. It is as though his words are not his own.

Apparently, just as his magic is not.  

Her injuries have mostly been seen to. What is left, he will heal himself. She lies on the surface of the desk, drooping like a wilted leaf. Her breaths come in easy sweeps now, and this, at least, gives him comfort. Even knowing that the overt damage to her body is gone, he handles her with the delicacy one extends to spun glass. Her head lulls against his shoulder after he lifts her, and he tucks it beneath his chin.

He bathes her, pulls her from the few pieces that remain of her mediocre armor and strips away the filthy layers that cling to her skin. He hesitates only after he has settled her to soak in the warm water.

Is it appropriate? Will it disturb her when she wakes to know he has bathed her? Do they know one another at all?

In the end, he comes to the conclusion that a bath is an inevitable part of her recovery. Better it be him than some group of strangers, though he may very well be one himself. He resolves to pay the utmost possible respect to her form.

In an unfortunate turn of events, his distressed mind chooses to embody this concern by fretting over frivolous choices. He spends a preposterous amount of time trying to select soaps and oils. He does not want to pick something that she will find offensive.

It is an awful thing to tend someone who cannot direct, and so he hopes that she will understand that he did not know better, should she wake and disdain the scent that lingers in her hair or on the surface of her skin.

He finds frustration with himself for worrying at trifles, but focusing on that frustration serves only to increase his anxiety. It is quickly evident that their bond offers him a profound sense of relief while looking after her. It is not a conscious decision to avoid his own strife by engaging with the acute details of washing her, he simply does.

The actions come to him in compulsive waves. He directs the water to wet her hair, then scrubs and detangles. The softest cloth is selected to cleanse her skin. He picks her nails clean. Every blister and scab is healed or rubbed with a soothing oil. All remaining injuries are managed with haste. He puts cooling balm on the flaky skin of her chapped lips, and he dresses her in one of his spare robes. It is an under layer spun from supple cotton, and it swallows her up.

She is so small, nothing more than a wraith of lanky limbs and protruding ribs. The flowing patterns of his sliver and blue bedding seem like a sea beneath her prone form. Dark skin sags heavily beneath her eyes. Her lips have parted, and she makes fitful sounds in her sleep. He traces the golden lines of her vallaslin until she is calm again.

That she is another servant of Mythal is no surprise. He does, however, find himself perturbed by the suffering that she has so clearly undergone. He cannot begin to imagine the sort of future that would leave her in a position to bear such pain in the service of the Lady Mother. Moreover, he can’t fathom how he might allow this sort of life for his mate.

He will do what he must to be sure that whatever made it so is circumvented. 

There’s no sending her back, obviously. The tampered eluvian shattered after the effort of transporting her to him. Looking at the evidence of what awaits her should she return, he does not think it wise to allow it. Such a decision is not his to make, and yet he ponders a sufficiently kind way to eradicate any attempt at pursuing the path.

Perhaps if she wakes to find him here, the friends and companions of her time will be… less of a draw than a life lived in the peace he could offer to her.

Resigned to his next and most important task, Solas pulls her left hand into his lap. A plan has been formulating in the back of his mind since seeing his magic in her palm. As it is now, it expels the force of the Dreaming in erratic bursts that disrupt, not only the flow of the Dreaming around his mate, but the energy within her as well.

He will reverse it.

Rather than projecting power, he means to convince it to absorb the Dreaming. It should work.

He doesn’t know why not.

If the process becomes too dangerous, he will find another way.  

When he first sets about communicating a new purpose to the mark, it hisses and spits bolts of molten raw magic out to bluster him away. The Dreaming swells in the air around them, eager to swallow what the mark offers. As he suspected it might, the process hurts her. Tears begin running down her face, and she frantically curls her body away from him. He tightens his grip on her forearm, refusing to return her limb until his efforts are complete.

Reversing the mark begins to require a myriad of simultaneous spells, and Solas desperately wishes that he had the forethought to ask for help or discuss this theory with someone whom was not as tipped into the situation as he. He’s up to his elbows in the process before he reflects on this, and sees no other option but to persist.

Her flesh is too weak to hold against the dangerous magic. He haphazardly maintains a few healing techniques to add stability to the whole of her arm, but he is not sure if it’s working. She is hyperventilating, churning violently in and out of consciousness, so a quick spell for calm has to be repetitively cast over her. On top of this, he keeps an unbroken focus on the obstinate mark in her palm. It is refusing to cow, lashing out wildly and drawing the attention of many of the palace’s spirits. Anxiety and a spirit of Confusion buzz in the corners of the room. There is a spirit of Sorrow and one of Excitement. Of course, there is also a very familiar spirit of Curiosity that has swollen with the palace’s collective speculation and the accompaniment of a very healthy embodiment of Rumor.  

It is only when Love, a spirit with which he is rather unfamiliar, approaches that one dares to enter the situation. The luminous creature settles on the side opposite him, sprawling over his bed as it folds itself into a mock elvhen shape. It forms wide shoulders and a sharp nose, a harsh jawline and long fingers.

It’s trying to look like him.

He observes from the corner of his eye as it nestles against her. His work falters for just a moment, and the healing spell is the one to lapse. The woman shrieks and jerks. Solas redoubles his efforts toward her flesh and continues to fight with the gash in her palm, but he cannot also initiate another round of calming auras. She remains present for the pain.  

Love starts with mumbling. Its tone warbles unnervingly until it settles on a tinny imitation of his own cadence. It speaks to her in his voice with a language that he does not know. It is harsh and guttural. Something shivers down his spine. He is unsure if it is sweat or apprehension.

She responds by weeping incoherently in a state that is not wholly conscious. Love quickly morphs away from its attempt at his physicality. As eerie and distracting as it was to watch the spirit play at being him, it jars Solas to see how quickly it decides that the connection they have is not appropriate to offer comfort.

Love roils and twists until it is small. It tucks its approximate head against her body, and rubs at her belly with a tiny hand. It speaks to her in the voice a child.

This particular rendering disturbs him significantly more than the last, and nearly all of his spellwork fractures as he fumbles through several dire conclusions drawn by Love’s casting such a shape.

Love discovers quickly that the child’s shape helps less than his. Her cries become more profound, and she begins to struggle against his hold on her wrist. It is a long and difficult moment before the spirit sifts through enough of her affections to attempt a new form. The next shape is the most detailed of them all, for it exhibits facial features and a specific color palette.  

Love becomes a woman: lean and tall, with lips that are stained dark and an oddly familiar golden stare. Sweeps of dark hair fall around the largely amorphous face Love has created. There is no nose or discernible structure to identify. Love speaks in the woman’s voice, and his mate is near instantly soothed. In her sudden calm, Love is triumphant. It scatters several spells over her, removing the burden of healing her flesh from him as it whispers grating promises down at her.

He does not like this spirit of Love, though its assistance allows him to properly focus on the mark.

Solas knows that he has managed something useful when the magic coalesces into an overwrought bubble of tension. It bursts audibly as the mark inverts. The Dreaming begins to pour into her with zealous purpose, and the crowd of spirits that have gathered release a chorus of triumph. Small licks of her emotions begin to stir in the air near her skin. He leans close, panting from the exertion of so much spellwork. It is hard to decipher much, but he senses her relief. It is a sweet and mild swell in his throat.

Perhaps it is he that feels the relief, and not her? 

This success is a momentary crutch. He will need to find a way to remove the mark from her. For now, however, he allows himself to be gratified with the small victory.

Love remains wrapped around her body like a protective shawl. The intent in its rendered eyes speaks of a predatory nature. He finds this feature most unbecoming in a spirit of Love, though he recognizes that it is the barest guise of the woman to blame for the trait.

Love’s face slowly becomes indiscernible beneath the heat of his glare. It is melting into a properly amorphous shape, the vibrant shuffle of light that makes up its form muted now that it has exerted such magical efforts.

“Be gone,” he commands it confidently, surprised when it does not immediately obey.

It scrutinizes him with haughty contempt until its eyes fold back into its churning face. Lacking the true structural form to sit rigidly, its posture manages to relay an impression of stiffness. It stubbornly remains.

His temper flares, spurred by his sudden state of mental exhaustion. “All of you!” he snaps.

It is quickly then that the spirits depart. Love, no longer mimicking an object of such high affection, flits out of existence in the corporeal realm before anything more need be said to chase it away.                 

  


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where's the porn, you ask? Well...  
> *Clears throat*  
> That is an excellent question, Friend.

He’s so young.

He’s so young, and he’s trying so hard to please her. To impress her.

To _woo_ her. 

It would be funny, in a nasty, ironic sort of way. But she’s too busy hating him to bother with laughing at him. Hating him, and loving him, and hating that she loves him. He feels her anger through their broken bond, somehow intact even after his abandonment, his betrayal, and the boatload of confusing time-altering magic that dicked with her system on the way back.

Half her arm was gone, for fuck’s sake. How did it reattach, and why the hell is the Anchor still lodged in it? Did she just regrow it? Is her punishment to remain bound to him through corrosive magic as closely as she remains bound to him through their affections?

It’s a poetic notion, certainly. Dark, but fitting.

It is his magic, after all. She radiates the presence of her alpha in every aspect of her being, even after he’s cast her aside in pursuit of greater triumphs.

_Not this Solas._

A niggling, wormy expression of weakness insists from the messy eaves of her mind.

_This Solas has done nothing yet. I could love him. I could have him._

_I could **stop** him. _  

\---

They don’t even share a language. With her stumbling Elvhen and mopey attitude, it takes weeks for them to get anywhere at all. She learns that they are in Arlathan, the _proper_ Arlathan, and that alone sends her spiraling into a weeklong depression that consists of refusing all food and outside contact. She hides in his bedroom and weeps, for hours, before finally losing consciousness.

Her home. Her friends. Her _entire_ _world_.

Gone.

Kieran. Morrigan. Varric. Cass.

Gone.

He copes with her moods well enough. He sits with her for as long as she will allow, and revisits several times a day. There are new foods on every tray he brings. She cannot identify anything, does not feel like eating anyway, and so accepts nothing in the throes of her grief.

He does not eat if she does not. She understands these words. Despite the self-loathing that tosses in her gut, the sentiment is enough to convince her to pluck a sweet bun off of a platter and stuff it down.

The grown-up Solas never smiled at her that way.

Over time, he brings more than food. He brings her books, and crafts, and instruments. When she is in good spirits, he tentatively brings friends to visit with them. She understands little of the conversation, but finds it interesting to gaze upon the wild renditions of elvhen people that make up this population of ancients.

He has many friends. Most precious among them are several spirits, solid in form and perfectly healthy outside whatever exists of the Fade here. Wisdom is introduced first, her shape and gender clearly defined though she lacks flesh.

Wisdom is kind. Her questions feel more supportive than prying.  Curiosity is relentless, plucking her hair and ears and setting the newly docile Anchor in her palm to hissing and sparking. Identifying one common visiting spirit based upon the energy it exudes proves difficult for her. It is too bright, too fleeting, and too shy.

Solas haltingly explains that its name is Infatuation after she gestures toward it insistently during one visit.

 She does not try to speak with his fleshly guests. She refrains from words with them much the same way that she initially refrained from food.  Silence, reverence to both of the twin Gods, was the way her clan mourned. There is still much sadness within her for the loss of everything, and the time has yet to come when she feels it is proper for her to use her voice.

\---

He makes up for her silence by saying things all of the time. It’s the incessant speaking that finally does her in. He lilts at her for hours, humming sometimes, and even occasionally singing. It’s always in Elvhen too complex for her to understand, and it is always unbearably pleasing.

She writes her name for him while they are looking over a book. His name is scrawled in the margin. He taps the character and asks for hers.

“Halevi?” he croons at her.

She nods.

Now he sings her name.

She begins to allow him to touch her while he speaks. First just her hands, then her hair, then her shoulders and back. He touches so much differently than the Solas that she knows. The confidence is there, but he doesn’t pull away from her. He does not bait her only to flee.

He grips her, digging his fingers into her hair and scraping his nails over her scalp. He clutches the taut muscles above her collarbone so tightly that she coils, shoulder blades protruding enough for him to dip his thumbs into the crooks formed by their edges. He never misses the opportunity to press his fingers into the pulse at her wrist.

He tries to push at the rhythm in her neck only once. It offends, and he does not try to touch her for several days after the rejection.  

There is nothing fleeting in the way that this Solas touches. No melancholy or guilt. He touches her like he never wants to stop touching her, and she wishes that she could understand what he says while they are together.

\---

She speaks nonsense back to him one afternoon. Without a half-thought, she officially breaks her time of grief. Her voice is rusty, hoarse from being used for sobs and then silence. She stares at the smooth edges of his fingernails, curled delicately over the upper corner of a weighty tome he’s cradling against his forearms. There is blue pigment staining the flushed nailbeds of both hands. Watery smears of the once bold color meander up what she can see of his arms.

She makes a soft sound first, something chuffy in the back of her throat. “So, you paint even now? For some reason, I thought it was a later hobby. Something pursued to offer solace during your rebellion…”

He stills. She wonders if he has understood. Wonders if he has recognized the accusation she’s hidden in the sweet tone of her words.

“Then again, you must have a thousand hobbies. One for every decade of your life, perhaps? How old are you, anyway?”

Her voice smooths quickly. She wills it to be light, kind. She hopes to convey the rare sense of peace she feels, resting beside him in companionable silence and enjoying the warm sitting room, awash in cushions and sunlight.

He moves with extreme caution, as though closing his book at a normal pace will spook her. She has an irked brow held aloft when he faces her, broad shoulders dominating the width of the daybed upon which they sit.

He somehow manages to gape, even with his mouth closed. Eyes all wide and bluer than she’s ever seen them.

“What?” she challenges, tossing her head. “I can say things too. You probably get less of what I’m saying than I gather from you. At least I’m familiar with _some_ Elvhen.”

He’s on her. One moment, she’s spitting haughty remarks toward his side of the couch, and in the next she’s against him with his breath huffing into her ear.

Gooseflesh sweeps up and down her body, tingly and distracting as her lungs go weak. He rubs his nose into her hair, scenting her, then trails down so that his lips rest against her ear once more. He’s carefully palmed the column of her throat, keeping her perfectly in place. His hold is firm, but not so much that it further impedes her shaky breathing. Stained fingertips tap at her jaw when his grip settles.

He rumbles. The sound comes from low in his chest, and it strums something inside of her. The reverberations of his request roll down into her belly, and her whole body goes tight trying to contain the fierce swell of arousal that sets her aching.

More words. He wants to feel her speak to him. He punctuates the demand by giving her neck a brief squeeze over the word _feel._

It’s too much. Much too much.

She bolts, scrambling off of the sofa and throwing herself into the bedroom. She’s shaking and slick with more than sweat.

She locks the door behind her.

\---

To his credit, he makes no mention of her flight. He gives her time, and again refrains from approaching her personal space for a number of days. A noticeable shift has occurred in his demeanor, however. He becomes bolder, if that is possible, eying the parts of her he finds pleasing in a damnably unabashed way. He growls more, and speaks in lower tones.

His manner is not the only thing to have changed. Something between them is radically different as well. She senses him more clearly. Their bond enables her to be vaguely aware of his proximity, whether he’s miles from her on the other end of the city or just one room away in the same quarters. She experiments, and learns that the connection can be tapered to allow her to focus her thoughts away from him. She does not do it often after discovering that the connection flows mutually enough to send him into a panic the first time she closes him off without warning.

She begins to play after becoming confident in her ability to effectively communicate through their link. She plucks and prods, using emotional nuance to help their odd, stunted correspondence. He does as well, though she feels that she sometimes misses the finer aspects of what he attempts.

She takes to enforcing a certain amount of physical distance between them. Usually about a yard, but occasionally, she keeps an entire room separating them while sending coy motivations on down the tether. He finds this quite vexing, or so he would have her believe.

His grins and persistent attempts to sidle up beside her or sneak in behind her belie the tart dejection he proclaims.

When this sort of play begins to dull, she ups the stakes. After a week of her game, she makes a habit of wearing fewer pieces of clothing. Initially, she sheds some layers because she is overwarm. The temperature is mild, as it has remained for the duration of her time in Arlathan, yet she finds her clothes sticky and damp before midday meal. Instead of full robes and under-layers, she wears just soft breeches and a wide wrap the winds down to her navel. His reaction to her lack of clothing encourages a more blatant pursuit of exposing skin.

The less she’s wearing, the harder he tries to weasel in a brush or a pat.

The desire to bathe accosts her at every turn. She wonders if it is the glorious marble bath within the quarters, or her own fascination with the various soaps and oils littering the chamber that entices her so. Either way, she finds great enjoyment with adding daily soaks in her routine.

Wisdom begins to visit her while she bathes. She’d think it odd, but having spent her youth in a Dalish clan, bath time still reads like a social event. If they were lucky enough to stumble across a deep pool or, richest of all finds, a hot spring, the entire clan shed down to their skivvies and hopped into the water.

She knows that Wisdom makes an effort to come during the daily bath in order to offer small comfort to the homesickness she feels by mimicking some of the social habits that the former Inquisitor associates with bathing. She knows this, because Wisdom speaks Common. Somehow, someway, the kindhearted spirit develops the language, and chats with her daily about adjusting to life among the people and any other manner of subject that Halevi brings forward.

Solas resents this development between them. He does not hide the envy he feels for their easy conversation or the fast affection that she grows for the spirit. He seats himself in the absurdly luxurious bathing chamber with them sometimes, relaying messages and questions through his friend in an effort to be included.

Neither of the ladies mind, though he seems downright unsatisfied with the whole situation no matter how many questions he badgers out of poor Wisdom.

Their spirit friend gradually begins to visit at other times. The sensitivity of those from the Dreaming astounds her. Without one awkward hint or a sharp passive comment, Wisdom feels that she wants her baths mostly to herself again and appears only when either she or Solas is obviously in the mood for more company.

He continues to make a point of witnessing her baths. She does not protest. He has never been forward, and it plays into their game. She likes to offer her back to him, but sometimes she teases with a leg propped out of the water or a particularly toasty temperature that rouses her circulation and saturates the room with the smell of her. On these occasions when she spreads her scent, he paces or restlessly attempts to peer around certain areas in the often cloudy water.

During one of these fine baths, he positively struts into the room, noisily pulls his chair up to the lip of the tub, and sits just behind her. She refuses to ruin her tranquil mood by opening her eyes to offer him a suspicious glance, but she does relay a certain sense of appropriately playful offense.

“Mighty daring of you, Ser. Closer to audacious than brave…”

His end of their bond feels strangely inactive, but she knows that he catches the wry flirtation she brushes in his direction.

“I’d move to the other side of the tub, but you’d follow. Also,” she does peek open an eye here, looking down her nose to the distant edge of the bath. “It’s too far, and I’m far too lazy.”

In spite of her words, she sits up at a purposefully languid pace. She stretches, extending her arms first up and then wide, thrusting her chest forward and arching her spine. Deep as the bath is, everything to her middle back is exposed to him, and she feels unspeakably smug.

He moves close, closer than he’s dared in quite some time. One of his hands dips beneath her arm to cup her shoulder, and he speaks.

In Common.  

“Ah, for this view? I’d follow you across the world. Certainly to the other side of my bath.”

A squeak pinches her startled gasp to a close. She makes to dive under the water, but his grip keeps her upright. He chuckles.

Fucking _chuckles_.

“How long?” she grates out, cheeks stinging with embarrassment.

He’s not meant to understand her inane chatter. Oh, _Creators_! The nonsense she’s been spewing!

“Not long,” he coos, petting a wide hand over the side of her back that is not already possessed. “Honestly!” he defends himself. She might have made a disbelieving sound. “Would I lie?”

She jerks her head around and gives him a stormy glare, but knows by her lips that it’s more of a pout. He has the decency to look a bit sheepish.

“How?”

“I traded with Wisdom. Knowledge for knowledge. I’d have given much more for this.”

He leans down, pressing his cheek to the naked place between her shoulders. He nuzzles into her, breathing deeply, and she forgets why she might have felt piqued over this development as he continues to say criminally sweet things to her.

“To speak _with_ you and not _at_ you, my heart.”

His face turns, lips caressing the tender skin of her back.

“My friend.”

His teeth scrape her lightly. Promises that are sharp, greedy, and hot from his breath.

“My mate.”   

               

           


	3. Yes!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all have wanted an update. Here it be.

He’s constantly smelling her.  At first it’s amusing, something silly and a bit ill-mannered that makes her chuckle. However, her frustration comes to a boil quickly these days. She’s let him rest beside her, after all. He should be grateful.

And still.

 

“Quit squirming.”

 

“Sorry,” he whispers, running a hand down her spine.

 

A discontented sound leaves her. She doesn’t much feel like napping anymore, but she doesn’t have the energy to get up. He moves, nuzzling into her hair and inhaling deeply.

 

Smelling. Again.

 

It’s too much. He’s too much. She wants him to go away.

 

Instead of voicing her immediate revulsion, she huffs and rolls off of his chest. In the process, she unlatches his hold on her person with some violence. She faces away from him, and tries to pretend he is not there to spare him the eviction crawling up her throat.

 

In the dark and magically cooled bedchamber, a new problem emerges. Alongside the endearingly befuddled hurt he shares through their bond, a misplaced sense of insecurity wells up inside of her. Lashing tentacles writhing on the hideous body of the Nightmare. Bloodied teeth and snarling faces. Jeering crowds and an unapproachable throne which has been fashioned to raise her unworthy person above others.

 

She is anxious. Safe in a room guarded by the alpha bound to her, she becomes increasingly frightened.

 

She scooches toward him until the length of her back molds to his side. Even her feet are turned to hide their soles against his calf. She’s taken his arm again, tucking her face into the crook of his elbow.

 

Her skittish behavior encourages him. Risking her ire, he curls his body over hers. His hold is always just firm enough, one hand sung against the soft flesh of her belly. There’s a bit of constriction when she takes a deep breath. It helps, and in the sudden comfort she finds herself wanting. She urges her hips back, squeezing her thighs and brushing her lips over tender skin on the underside of his forearm. She nearly hums for the rising ache inside of her.  

 

“Oh!”

 

It is a revelation.

 

“What?” He stills.

 

“I’m going into heat.”

 

There is a pause. He responds with restraint. “Yes.”

 

“Well that explains it.” She is smug, cuddling back against him without reservation.

 

“Explains what?”

 

“The mood swings, the lethargy, wanting to kiss every inch of you and also punch you in the face.”

 

“Ah.” He still sounds very confused. “I assumed that you were aware. If I’d known that it would offer you comfort, I would have told you that your season was approaching.”

 

He leans down and pushes his nose into her neck. It tickles. She’s less irritable this time around, so she lets him sniff her some before pushing his face away by digging a few fingers under his pointed chin.

 

 “You’ll be staying with me through my time of needing?” She does not know why the words leave her with a rush of worry.

 

“Yes!” It is a victorious shout. He back-tracks, feeling uncertain himself. “I mean, that is to say, if you’ll be comfortable allowing me to be with you during such a time.”

 

He’s gone bashful. It happens sometimes with this Solas. Whenever she drops coy behavior in favor of being direct, he goes all pink and babbling. It doesn’t happen when _he’s_ being forward. Only if she returns the interest.

 

He’s spent so long pursuing her, but now that she doesn’t spook he stutters.  

 

Strange man.

 

“It is allowed, so long as we will be having sex this time.”

 

His voice is croaky. “What?”

 

“Oh, yeah. I have never been with you, and you never with me. We were bound through a proper bite, but no sex. It was-” She weighs her semantic options. “Complicated.”

 

“How is that possible?”

 

He’s downright panicked now, removing his arm and edging away from her. Still close enough to share warmth.

 

“Some might argue that it isn’t, but here we are.”

 

He’s quiet. She turns to peek at his face. She can almost hear him thinking, uneasy where he was eager before.  

 

It occurs to her that he is young.

 

"Have you ever...?"

 

He bursts from his quiet doze with clear outrage. "Yes!"

 

"I was only asking," she demurs.

 

His cheeks flush deeply. "Well, the answer is yes."

 

"Alright."

 

" _Alright_."

 

He is irritated now, flopping onto his back and crossing his arms over his chest. The pillow cools what his arm had made warm.

 

“Have you?” He spits the words.

 

She doesn’t care for his tone, but answers readily. “Yes.”

 

“But not with me?”

 

“Are you jealous?”

 

“Yes.”

 

His response is prickly, and she feels her hackles rise. It is more candid honesty than she expects from Solas at any point in his life. Whether this is refreshing or alarming, she cannot decide. Mostly, in this instance, it is grating.  

 

“That’s foolish,” she says.

 

Her agitation comes through more harshly than intended, so she softens the admonition by petting his arm. Jealousy is natural for an alpha, particularly where their mate is concerned. Should that mate happen to be of an omega persuasion?

 

_Creators_. The tantrums that could be thrown.

 

The Solas that set their bond had not favored the tendency. In fact, if she hadn’t realized that rubbing his chin to the top of her head had scented her of him, she would have assumed that he possessed none of the pettier, baser alpha behaviors.

 

The Solas with her now controls less of his instinctual drives. His temperature ticks up with his irritation. She can tell by the swell of his scent. Leathery and musky, there’s something alluring in the thick smell. It makes her think of fur dampened with snow and sweat layered beneath the washing powder in a pair of work clothes.

 

It makes her want to move closer.  

 

He reaches for her, rolling to her again and tracing her cheek. “Omegas are rare in these days too, perhaps more so. You’ve mentioned that you were the only one where you were raised, but that you’ve met several others.” His fingers have wandered down to her neck. His touch is the tickling whisper of a feather on skin. Desiring to be possessive by lingering over her throat, but not obtrusive or aggressive. She appreciates the sentiment, and arches her chin up in offering. “I’ve not been with one, certainly not during their season.”

 

“So, you’ve never tied with anyone?” she clarifies.

 

The smooth touch falters. He retracts his hand. “Once, accidentally.” His expression is guilty, wincing. “I hurt her.”

 

Oh, _ouch_.

 

She weaves an arm around his side. Pulling herself close, she puts her forehead to his after some wiggling to make up for their difference in height. “You won’t hurt me.”

 

He hums at her, still a bit stormy, and stretches up on his elbow to kiss her hairline. She nuzzles into the crook of his neck, then puts a bit of space between them. Best to leave him to brood over their conversation on his own. She needs to start planning for the impending wave of hormones and sex drive, and he needs to sort himself.

 

She doesn’t care for jealous fits. He may feel what he feels, but if he’s sharp with her again due to his own insecurities, something will be done. Disappointment is one of the cruelest sentiments to offer along the tether tied between bonded mates. It stings and drifts, offering clear notes of the specific negativities that flavor it.

 

At least, that is what she’d heard from the Grown-up Solas the day he’d taken her arm.      

* * *

 

She’s dying.

 

Actually dying.

 

And he is going to rub her feet while she dies.

 

“Solas,” she says.

 

“No.”

 

“Yes!”

 

“No, my heart.” He rolls his thumb in an upward curve against the arch of her foot, and she _trills_.

 

“Have me now.” All that is left of her voice is a whine.  “Please now?”

 

“Patience.”

 

“Solas…”

 

And the cycle starts anew.

* * *

 

 

Her heat sets fully during sleep. She comes to in a tizzy of sweat and confusion, rushing toward his side of the bed. It is empty. Discovering his absence is like a kick to the ribs.

 

One small word escapes her, low in the night. “Vhenan?”

 

She doesn’t have the chance to lurch out of bed in search of him. He’s there, fumbling out of the washroom and rushing to apologize. He supports the weight of her as she clumsily attempts to throw her legs off the edge of the bed and sit up.

 

“I am here,” he says. “I am here.”

 

He would have said it again, but the words catch in his throat. Her scent carries a harsher note, something that’s more deeply rooted in physiology to entice a partner. She catches the bold trace of her early heat as well, and feels comfort in knowing that the sharper pheromones will entice a corresponding rut in him.

 

At least then they’ll both be hormone-addled fools.

 

All week she’s reeked of arousal. Coiled and rolling in her belly, too buoyant to bear without frustrations and complaints. Arousal alone is needy, playful, and persistent. Somewhat achy in its throes, but, all things considered, not so bad.

This is different.

 

She hurts from the back of her teeth to the tips of her toes. She hurts for him. The smell of him helps. And the feel of his skin. And the taste of his sweat.

 

She weasels a hand into his collar. Her nails take purchase in the meat of his shoulder. It’s comforting. She’s got his neck, outstretched and bare. Zealous, suckling kisses leave her lips salty and burning. Her other hand is holding onto some part of his clothing, but the feel of cloth is unimportant. He makes her better.

 

His smell, his sweat, and his skin.

 

Everything is tilting and odd. She feels sick, wild, and somehow desolate in spite of his proximity. She rides out the wave of nausea and melancholy, scratching, pulling, and kissing. For a time, she is lost to the tumultuous roil that has overtaken her. She knows only desperation and violent attempts to claim more of his flesh.  

 

Uncomfortable restraints on her back and belly bring her to herself. Someone is shaking her. Squeezing her tummy so tightly that she has to fight to breathe, and keeping her head up by spanning their hands on either side of her face and neck. Her head is being bobbed left and right.

 

He’s talking. He’s saying words. What words?

 

She wants to know.

 

Solas catches her eyes with his own. He is concerned. Afraid, even. The look on his face makes her want to cry.

 

“Can you hear me? Are you there?”

 

She makes an affirmative hum. Tensing her neck, she struggles to nod. He loosens his grip, moving one arm down her back to anchor her against him. The other reaches for something on the bedside table. She hauls in a deep breath as the pressure on her stomach dissipates. His legs are wrapped around her middle, pinning her hips in the opposite direction from his own. It is a useful position, essentially neutralizing the lower half of her body. She recognizes that it is a wrestler’s hold.

 

He’s _wrestled_ her off of him.

 

She starts to cry then. Soft, sad sounds escape that would embarrass her, were she in her right mind. Apologies pour from her lips.  

 

“What? No!” His panic is quiet, evident only in shaky hands and the hammering beneath her ear. His voice is steady. “No, it is my fault.”

 

She is incredulous and wounded. Their bond has blown wide. None of her emotions are hidden from him.

 

“Truly, Love.” He pushes her hair away from her sticky, tearstained face. “The fault is mine.”

 

She means to argue with words and not sentiments, but a cup presses to her lips. On instinct, she sips when it tips up. The water is too cold and too sweet. She half swallows, but, to her further humiliation, a hearty dribble runs from the corner of her mouth in her lack of commitment to the drink.

 

Her hand lifts to wipe at her chin, but he catches it with his own. He runs a thumb over her knuckles while tucking her face against his robes to dry her tears and the small spill.

 

“My inexperience is to blame for the onset of your fever. If I had trusted your words, given more attention to your wishes, we could have avoided this.“

 

He smells too good. “It’s fine,” she says weakly. “I’m fine.”

 

A disgruntled murmur rumbles against her temple. He’s smelling her too, kissing her. Tender little pecks along her ear and cheek with a strong sense of reassurance punctuating his side of things. He rubs the underside of his chin over her hair. Basking in the familiar act, she calms.

 

For a time they do not speak. He peppers the tense quiet with small acts toward her comfort. He wets a cloth and cleans her, rubbing the cool fabric over her stinging eyes and neck. More drinks, a silent offer of food, and many gentle kisses.  

 

She is the one to end the reprieve. “You’ve put me off to keep the heat at bay, yes?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“That’s smart,” she says.

 

It is praise. She means for the positivity to present in an upward inflection, but her voice is as limp as her exhausted body. She wants him to talk to her. Weave another unending chain of lilting Elvhen as he had in the earliest days of her waking here. She wants his words to lap over her jagged edges and soothe the painful knots in her throat.

 

He begins to prattle, and she nearly weeps for the relief. To escape the task of prompting him is a treat these days. He’s been somber aside from the compulsive acts of care.

 

“All of the books said that engaging in physical pleasures before the heat set in would, not only increase the length of the season, but also the intensity of your need. The goal was to stay focused enough on your state that I caught the first tip toward the fever, but did not coax any unnecessary needing through impatience.” He sighs, disappointment with himself leeching into the air. “I was not attentive enough.”

 

She laughs at him. It is a small scoff, and she hopes that he is not offended. She tilts unsteadily in his lap until she is upright enough to see his face.

 

“Well,” she says. “You’ve gotta’ pee sometime.”

 

He laughs too, shaking his head and ginning like a boy. He fights the smile, but loses ground in the corners of his mouth. She knows this expression well, and finds joy in coaxing it from his features. She pecks the dimple in his chin with the last winds of their snickering.

 

Inappropriate childish humor for the win.

 

She rests her brow against the edge of his jaw. The glum, apologetic front clears, and the heat rekindles low in her belly. Taut and swelling, it burns like the red flesh that rises over a new bruise. It spreads from the crests of her hips to the back of her knees, hurting from the inside out. With the aching comes reinvigoration. Her breathing deepens, and the weakness drains from her limbs. She casts a hand over the edge of his face, careful to touch only with her fingertips and not her nails.

 

“Solas,” she says.

 

He laughs a bit. A half chuckle thrown at her clumsy, familiar rhetoric. “Yes.”

 

“ _Yes!_ ” She growls the word against his jaw.    

              

 

         

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, the antici... PATION!


	4. Finally!

He pushes her back.

Hard.

Forces his weight down on her in a way that leaves room for only the shortest, gasping breaths between their kisses.

It is impossible to keep track of his hands. She’s dizzy, and it feels like he is touching her all over. Every inch of her skin buzzes and tingles. The aches of her heat have already begun to dissipate, spreading through her limbs and chasing the hits of arousal coursing through her. She tastes hints of the sweet wine he has in a glass nearby and sucks harder at his lower lip for the sudden clarity that the familiar flavor offers her overwhelmed mind.

The surplus of luscious sensory information is more keenly interrupted when he is rough with her. She likes it, the brief moment of clean awareness brought on by miniscule pain. Quick nips perpetrated with his sharp teeth, the peak of a lingering ache from his hands gripping her arm or thigh too tightly, his fist balled in the hair at the base of her skull, tugging hard to expose her neck.

This is what she wanted. This delicious contrast between his tender care and the forcefulness with which he is willing to take her. It makes her feel good.

Sexy.

Strong.

She is not some glass bauble he fears touching, but still worth his caring devotion.

She tries to give as good as she gets. However, a lingering since of embarrassment about mauling him earlier tempers some of her more aggressive tendencies, even in the throes of the moment.     

They dawdle in these indulgences for an unhurried amount of time. When she tends toward restlessness, he exacts another nip or a tug. To control the pace of sexual encounters is typical alpha behavior, and Lavellan enjoys the way he exercises this control in spite of her eagerness to finally get to the meat of this matter.

He makes to roll her over after removing all of the thin sleeping robes. She stops him, clamping her legs tightly around his middle and lamenting his attempt.

“I want to see you,” she says. Kisses get brushed along his jaw. She makes eye contact with him and attempts to impart as much determination as she can manage in her state. “I want to see.”

He pulls back a bit to argue, and she struggles to keep him pressed to her. “But when I-“

“No.” She interrupts.

He chuckles. “But after we’re knott-“

“I like it this way,” she says, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding her back away from the mattress by securing her weight on his shoulders. She offers more breezy kisses, wandering toward his ear until she can breathe in a mewling and convincing, “I want you this way.”

He gives easily with another half chuckle. They are both too eager to get hung up on details. If he’d pushed for his way, she would have submitted.

In another moment, she is back against the warm bedding, and Solas’ hand is pressing into her lower belly. He anchors himself there, balancing the bulk of his body off of his knees and onto one of her soft spots as he positions their sexes together. It makes her gasp.

This act is more painful that those previous, but it is well worth enduring as she, at last, feels the girth of his length ease inside of her. It is another contrast. The sharp, bruising ache of his whole body weight crushing her belly and the keen, pleasurable slide of his entering her.     

He is also impatient. His strokes are irregular, and the tempo he attempts is hard to follow. Fortunately, she is already beside herself when things begin, and so it takes little effort on either of their parts for her to reach a thorough climax.

It is after this first peak that things become troublesome once more. Her heat does not abate with the pleasure, but intensifies. Her biology seeks a tie, not an orgasm. The insidious ache that had welled up before their petting doubles, and she is hoarse in her pleading.

Her nails grate his flesh again, and she can do little to stop it. She’s powerfully aware that the base of his knot is swelling, because it catches against her entrance painfully as he continues to thrust with abandon. To endure much longer seems impossible, and it is not done without complaints. Then there is a sudden pressure.

With a cry, he lodges inside of her, knocking past flexible, sensitive bundles of nerves unique to omega physiology. She comes again as he thrusts haltingly through his own climax, stimulating the parts of her that crave just this particular moment of intercourse. The excruciating build of her heat bursts in waves that both amplify and echo her pleasure. She feels mad with it, moaning, panting, and wiggling to feel for the fullness and pressure of his knot.

Things die down, and she is grateful to catch her breath. He is still stuck in her, awkwardly trying to lie himself this way or that in an attempt to rest his weight off of his elbows and not onto her.

She hisses when he tries to roll them to their sides. It pulls something tender deep in her, and she unthinkingly whacks his shoulder for the attempt.         

Exasperated, he says, “You know, our tie would have been more comfortable if you'd let me have my way.“

“Shh.” She kisses him, locking her ankles together over his lower back and trying to ease him down onto her and off of what must be tired wrists and elbows. She does her best to accept his newly unwieldy weight as well as the somewhat uncomfortable stretch of him inside of her.

She expects him to argue. After all, she interrupted his words often, and he does not disguise the whorl of irritation and worry he feels from their bond. They both know that there is nothing to look forward to now but another week or so of impatiently scrabbling toward the rush of pleasure that had already passed between them, and then sessions of cumbersome knotting in the wake of those pleasures.

She cannot find it in herself to feel any sense of anxiety or dread. She is drunk on the feel of this, uncomfortable though it may be. Such intimacy is reserved only for one’s mate, and she has so long been denied hers.

To have him now, tied up inside of her with an impatient look on his flushed face and the smell of their sex saturating the room left her nothing short of euphoric.

She kisses his nose, finally pulling him down in a resting position over her. “Shush.”       

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, forgive any typos. I just cranked most of this out in about an hour. So... ya' know. Just let me know. XD


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